Institut Francais de Recherche pour l’expl. de la mer (Ifremer)

Created in 1984, Ifremer is a public institute of an industrial and commercial nature (EPIC). It is supervised jointly by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy. Ifremer, through its research work and expert advice, contributes to knowledge of the oceans and their resources, to monitoring of marine and coastal environments and to the sustainable development of marine activities. To these ends, Ifremer conceives and operates tools for observation, experimentation and monitoring, and manage oceanographic databases. It also operates a great part of the ocean research fleet, including all underwater systems and large-scale mobile facilities and equipments. Ifremer performs targeted applied research to address the questions posed by society (climate change effects, marine biodiversity, pollution prevention, seafood quality, etc.). Results include scientific knowledge, technological innovations, and systems for ocean observation and exploration. One of the main strategic activities of IFREMER is the development of global and regional ocean observing systems for ocean and climate research and for operational oceanography. IFREMER coordinates the Coriolis inter-agency consortium that gathers all main French institutions involved in global and regional ocean observing systems (French contribution to GOOS). Ifremer is involved in WP1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9. It co-leads WP2, 4, 7 and 9 and leads Tasks 1.3, 4.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 7.5.